The title is both question and description. Still trying to figure it out as we go. With some help, I might get something right.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Don't Know Nothing 'Bout Nothing At All

I usually am averse to posting things that others far better than I have already covered. In this case, the illustrious Tbogg covers the main points without ever once losing sight of the fact that the entire story is insane.

I heard about it listening to the Thom Hartmann radio program today. Hartmann even had Field Searcy on, and Searcy was doing his level best not to sound bug-dung nuts. He failed miserably.

Searcy said that, since Cobb County, Georgia has adopted a sustainable growth plan that fits in with the United Nations recommendations for sustainable growth, Agenda 21 is no longer just some weird conspiracy theory but actual fact.

Prodded by Hartmann, Searcy made clear that he is not only crazier than an outhouse rat in August, but also dumber than a bag of hair. Searcy went on and on about zoning laws - ZONING LAWS!!! - that might prevent property owners dispensing their property in any manner they see fit by, say, restricting the number of single-family houses that can be created on a particular parcel of land.

Hartmann was gentle with Searcy. He said, basically, that was how zoning laws worked. That sustainable development is something most communities work toward in order to control sprawl, maintain control over traffic patterns, noise and air pollution, control local resource distribution; these are the reasons we have zoning laws, so communities aren't like Topsy in Uncle Tom's Cabin, but grow and develop in ways that are, ahem, sustainable.

Searcy allowed there should be a balance.

Which is what zoning laws do. They attempt to reach a balance between the preferences of any particular property owner and others in the community who will be impacted by decisions that property owner might make as to how that property is used.

It occurred to me that while Searcy may be a loon, there are many who don't have to subscribe to the whole "Delphic Mind Control" business yet may hear "sustainable development" and freak out. Because, obviously, the last thing we need are communities that grow in ways that don't undermine their ability to remain viable.

Your conservative Americans, ladies and gentlemen. They don't even know what zoning laws are or how they work.

I do so hope the Republican Party doesn't do too much reforming over the next two years, because we'll lose the entertainment value of watching ignorant people explain things they don't know anything about to people who are suddenly flush with new, wrong, knowledge.